Goldeneye
by whatevergirl
Summary: In a world where computers were everywhere, the AI are corrupted and start a doomed war with humanity, but MI6 doesn't give up... It's only centuries on, however, when James Bond encounters a young man from that world that the truth of what happened so long ago comes to light and they can begin to make things right.
1. Prologue

A/N: 007 isn't mine and I make no money from this.

The 007 in this prologue is Pierce Brosnan's 007, but he goes by a different name as James Bond (who will be introduced later) is Daniel Craig's.

* * *

"Goldeneye, please!" Q begged, his eyes watering behind grubby glasses as he struggled through the small, overheated passages in an effort to reach the main frame. "I know you're still in there."

"Designation not found. You have two more attempts before automatic lock down." The soft male voice replied smoothly.

"Shit. Please." He breathed, crawling as quickly as he could. There had to be some part of Goldeneye left, but he'd need to access the consoles inside the central control room to find her.

Behind him, a loud explosion rang out, the tremors shaking even the underground system he was scrambling through. Cursing his own stupidity, Q hurried on.

The current situation was dire; the AIs were ruthless in their domination and mankind was outmatched. He had no idea what the exact numbers were as no one was keeping count anymore but several months earlier, the AI had wiped out more than 67% of humanity. This was a war they could not win.

At last, he reached a grate and kicked it out, toppling through inelegantly. He was not the kind of person that normally did such missions; he wasn't a 00, a field agent or even a bog-standard soldier. He was the Quartermaster of Europe, someone who had been under constant protection since his promotion last year, after Boothroyd had been killed. It showed the state of the world with painful clarity that a twenty year old man had been put in charge of so much when he had knowledge but little experience in leading the vast department. Still, one year on and though things were far worse, Q had had a baptism of fire, emerging as a leader and the one hope they had of stopping the slaughter… which meant he was on his hands and knees in passages made of heated metal, his clothing burnt and frayed, his skin damaged. The situation felt impossible.

However, he was the only chance that mankind had for speaking to the AI that processed everything. Once known as Goldeneye, the AI had kept track of humanity through the cameras and microphones that had once littered every inch of their civilisation, reporting suspicious behaviours to authorities in a largely successful bid to prevent crime before it had even happened. She had been able to process data at an incredible rate, far more effective than any human and so law enforcers had her input the relevant information directly into their personal data comms. For more than half a century, Goldeneye functioned as the main component in keeping peace in Europe.

However, she was old technology, even when she'd been put to use fifty years earlier. Nearly two centuries early, people had made great advancements in technology, their lives improving in leaps and bounds as artificial intelligence had been developed. They had allowed all manner of robots to do the difficult jobs for them, the dangerous, unpleasant or monotonous tasks, but before long riots broke out that the police had been unable to fully subdue on their own. The richer were getting richer, the poor were falling further into poverty and those in the middle were desperately clinging to the edge; trying to pull themselves up, to gain that extra bit of money and gain that extra bit of class in the eyes of the world. Some had managed to a certain extent, buying the latest tech and smugly showing off, while trying to keep their books balanced, but more and more lost their grip and tumbled to the depths of destitution, the rich organisations taking all they owned to make up for debts they couldn't repay. Crowds of the desperate with tempers frayed and nerves raw viewed the rich elite eating well, with a roof over their heads and several more to spare, with Nano tech running through their bodies to keep them healthy; the discontent had grown.

The riots blossomed into a full revolution and even the AI had been unable to quell the rage. But the Europeans had banded together, casting their money and intelligence into one pot and the resulting government had had the power to develop GOLDENEYE.

GOLDENEYE had been an AI unlike any other. It had had a physical body, a small, olive-skinned female which had allowed it to interact with people in a way other AI had not yet managed; it was able to see to its own updates, for both hardware and software. But the GOLDENEYE doll was only one part of a three part system. It had also had a main frame, housed underground in a large complex that was safe from even military grade explosions, this received all the data and transmitted it to the relevant people or systems. The final part was a weapon in space, the tech had been highly advanced for the time; holding a geosynchronous orbit most of the time, it was an a every present glint in the sky, but it was faster than any vessel that had been built until then, capable of moving into position with great speed. It could drop through layers of atmosphere to deploy weapons without damaging the main station that they were housed in. It had been designed to land and restock when necessary.

However, the technology at the time had been no match for the sheer tenacity of the people. Battles had been fought, many had died but GOLDENEYE was shut down and the governments agreed to focus less on AI and more on improving the lives of everyone.

One hundred and thirty years later, GOLDENEYE had been discovered again; while the doll was missing and the space station inaccessible, the main frame had been accessed. Updating the dated equipment had taken more than a dozen years, and it had taken just over another five to access the AI and update the software. Several years later, with GOLDENEYE linked up to all cameras and microphones, with free reign through the irreplaceable internet, the European government had started up their surveillance, using GOLDENEYE to keep track of people.

"Shit." He swore again as he stood in the circular room, stacks of old, now irrelevant memory banks built into the structure.

Goldeneye had been here once, though Q only had dulled memories of crawling into this space a dozen years earlier. The AI had been kind, interested in him. She had spoken of her other parts, the doll and the space station and the young boy had listened with rapt attention. An awful lot had happened over those two days that he'd gotten stuck here, but best of all was that he'd received a designation off her: friend. That designation had thrilled him, more than the claims of MI6 that he was a hero for saving the AI from an unknown threat that he had been unable, at the age of nine, to back-hack and find their location. MI6 had wanted to talk to him about what he had done and Goldeneye's gift to him, but the AI herself had been happy to discuss topics that had interested the boy and talk about them seriously with him, without sounding like she was patronising him.

Thinking about it years later, Q acknowledged that she had probably never encountered a child before and even a genius like Q as a child had allowed his emotions to colour his actions. For all her predictive programmes and the plethora of data she could access; theory, observing behaviour on surveillance and actually encountering it for yourself were all very different scenarios and neither two could fully inform you of the other.

She had probably learnt a fair bit from him, but in return she had shown him her world. Even now, he had several access ports on his head; two on his neck, at the top of his spine and one on his left temple. The world they had allowed him into was nothing like this one; something that couldn't be understood with his regular senses, as there was nothing to see with his eyes, nor anything to smell, hear, touch or taste. And yet, it was another world, where data was input and received and when he was connected, it made sense. He had returned numerous times in later years, but he hadn't had to crawl in like this; she had always welcomed him in through the front doors.

It made Q wonder if a fair portion of their current problem came from communications issues; Goldeneye was the only AI who had ever had a true understanding of the outside world in a real, tangible sense. Other AIs knew it existed in theory, but as most humans understood that the internet existed, they couldn't imagine it as a fully realised world of its own. The regular AIs didn't understand the difference between the destruction of the parts of the world they didn't like and humans deleting sites and data from computers; between killing humans and the deletion of AIs that were considered troublesome or no longer needed.

There had been a catalyst in this latest war, a tipping point that Q held a large portion of the blame for upsetting. He'd never told those in charge of his guilt, instead choosing to hold his tongue but it coloured his actions now; his lack of consideration for his own safety, his reluctance to eat the rations provided or take blankets for sleeping. 004 had played him like a well-tuned instrument and Q hadn't realised what was happening in time to undo the damage he had inflicted.

Burying his painful flare of guilt that always made him tremble, Q approached terminal and extracted the wires that he needed to link up.

"Please let this work." He whispered, cables clenched in burnt hand; the skin had mostly blistered except for one spot where the skin had gone white. The pain was distant in his mind, the desperate drive to fix the mess he had caused overriding any other thoughts.

With only a vague understanding of what he needed to do and no true plan on how to accomplish it, Q lay down on the ground and inserted the wires. The last physical sensation he noted was of his body relaxing into a sleep-like state, the hand that had been holding the wires dropping down beside his head.

Cyberspace was nothing like the real world; the mass of colour that was everywhere, lines and lines and lines of it, spreading out beyond Q's comprehension. He loved it. Latching onto #DC143C, Q allowed himself to move along; not that he considered how he was moving. The young man had learnt as a child that trying to move body parts when he was merely an organic presence in a digital world led to panic attacks; decidedly unpleasant when you had no body there to calm down. Instead, he had eventually accepted that he was nothing more than a thought here and adapted to a different way of seeing the world.

For now, he kept to the #DC143C line as he needed to troubleshoot Goldeneye into restarting. 9EYES was a programme that Q had allowed 004 set up in her mainframe, having fallen for the story that 004 had spun him and believed that this change would aid MI6. But 9EYES had suppressed Goldeneye and taken over, making use of the vast network and her open access to follow a separate agenda to the one Q had expected.

#FFD700 was running parallel to him now, but the usually beautiful line was broken up by #8A2BE2, the change a jarring difference but, Q supposed, at least it hadn't disappeared altogether. Goldeneye had been pushed down, but she was still there.

Focussing his attention, Q tried to repair parts of the line as he went by pulling small sections of the gold. The effort was greater than expected and he found himself away from the line, though he was unsure if he had lost consciousness for a moment and drifted or if he had glitched out of position. It was unnerving and he would avoid thinking too deeply about it, even later but for now the young man simply continued along the crimson thread to his destination.

Upon arrival, Q instantly noticed that the codes protecting his old friend had been changed, the new ones knitted together more tightly. Considering the change more closely, he realised his own access was still granted; had 9EYES not realised that he was human? Perhaps Goldeneye hadn't shared the fact of her gift with other systems. As good as he was on the outside, this would have been impossible; Q quickly had to acknowledge the level of skill behind this programme.

9EYES was invasive and while its blue-violet colouring should have been a beautiful shade, Q was horrified to see the extent of its corruption. Distress blanked his mind out again, but when he came back to himself, he had only moved closer to the largest portion of gold. It didn't matter, he decided, he'd have to do something. Still, he didn't dare announce his queries, afraid that he would be noticed as an intruder and either ejected from the system or receive a virus in retaliation; he'd experience both in his time and neither were pleasant.

Concentrating further into Goldeneye's now dormant centre than he had ever gone, Q carefully began to nudge the system; he wanted to wake up as much of her as he could. Blanking out again, Q soon found himself deeper inside than he had expected, #8A2BE2 barely a glimmer from his position. Slightly more confident, Q pushed his own energy out with the desperate hope that Goldeneye would respond… but when he woke up again, he was in his own, twitching body in a heap on the floor.

The desire to call out to Goldeneye was quelled as he noticed that the main frame had more lights on than before; he'd made something of a difference, but what exactly he had done was hard to say. Forcing himself to his hands and knees, the quartermaster found the strength to crawl back towards the passages he had come from.

He was weak though, curling up against the grate and shutting his eyes. Something had happened, but it hadn't been anything exciting enough to give him the needed burst of adrenaline. Instead, he felt a vague hope in his chest as he allowed himself a moment to rest.

He was so thirsty now, his tongue sticking to the top of his mouth uncomfortably and the back of his throat in a similar state. He really did need to move, if only to get some water. He managed to struggle along to the open area in the venting, but he sighed miserably as he looked up at where he needed to go.

He stood no chance of getting up there. Dropping back to his knees and toppling over onto his side, Q shut his eyes and felt himself passing out.

* * *

"Q? Come on, kiddo. Eyes open. There we are."

A warm hand coaxed Q into opening his eyes as the rim of a water flask pressed against his bottom lip. "007?" He murmured, before raising his hands to try and take a drink.

"I'll hold it, Q. Ready?" Peter Branston gave a reassuring smile before tipping the flask. The feel of cool water against his throat made the young man whimper with relief. "Slowly…"

"Where… How did you get in here?" He asked in confusion, wrapping his arms around his torso as he noticed the trembles that wouldn't stop.

"Some young woman let me in. Told me how to get here and headed off again." The agent scrubbed a hand through his dark hair, before giving the other a smile. "Don't know if she was working for or against the AI, what with being here in the first place but then willing to help me out…"

"Can we go?" Q interrupted, desperately wanting to see sunlight and feel a cool breeze.

"Of course. Can you stand?"

"I feel sick and tired." Q stated bluntly, not really wanting to admit it but knowing that 007 needed all the facts. "However, I feel better how I've had some water and I very much want to leave."

Peter nodded, knotting his hands into a foothold and crouching down. "Let's go then."

Their journey back was slow, Q unable to regain the energy he had spent in cyberspace, but Peter was patient for once, not complaining about their pace. Outside and in the open, Q dropped to the ground again and shut his eyes.

"I just need a minute." He explained, a trickle of shame working its way in; 007 had known him for years, since Q had gained his technopathic abilities and his grandfather, Boothroyd, had decided it was safest to keep him close. He had just turned nine at the time, but he despised the idea that 007 still saw him as a child. He'd been mature intellectually for a long time, but he had rather wanted to prove that he had grown physically too.

"On my back. That way I can keep my gun out and we can keep moving. There is a vehicle waiting not too far from here." Peter crouched, ignoring Q's glare. "You might get along well enough with the AI, but we are at war with them and I don't want to be killed for your pride."

It was a harsh statement, but it was enough to get him moving. Peter was right, they were at war and catching his breath in what was essentially the back garden of the enemy's HQ was beyond stupid.

The quartermaster decided to put what had happened and the plans for the immediate future into coherent language before arriving back at their own HQ, but the young man dozed off again almost instantly and completely missed the walk to the horses, waking only long enough to scramble onto the back of one before sliding back into sleep as Peter mounted behind him and set the creature off.

The steady beat of the hooves was familiar enough to feel safe, horse travel a common mode of transportation when they were avoiding technology. In the back of his mind, he wondered about the girl who had helped them out, but if he had any revelations, they were lost when he woke up later on.

* * *

MI6 had changed a lot in the past two centuries, now no longer limiting itself to the UK, but as the head of the Military Intelligence Network for all of Europe. Q wasn't entirely sure how MI6 had come out in the lead for all the Intelligence Agencies in Europe, but he'd always struggled to stay awake in history class, but his grandfather had always joked that they had won that battle because everyone else wanted to keep MI6's Quartermaster happy, as he'd been the best. As a teenager, he'd always joked back that his grandfather shouldn't admit to his age, just to show off his ego, before jumping back to avoid the lazy swat the man would give. Now, nestled deep under London with tunnels they had dug themselves leading to countryside, MI6 was well battered, but still functioning with a leader who inspired an odd sort of confidence in those she spoke to.

"Tell me you have a plan, Quartermaster." M commanded as she dropped heavily into her desk chair, her elegance long since gone after she had been injured during The Fall.

"I won't say it's not as bad as we initially thought, but it's not as hopeless. Goldeneye is still there, she's just been corrupted and suppressed by 9EYES. With a bit more effort, I might be able to get her up and running again." He stated softly as he stood straight, trying not to show the exhaustion that lingered still.

M stared intently at him for a moment, her sharp eyes seeming to spot every secret he held. "From what 007 tells me, just accessing cyberspace left you unconscious for several hours. Forty minutes to get in, closer to an hour to get back out so that's nearly three and a half hours you were unaccounted for."

He hesitated, wanting to tell her about his suspicions; that he had been able to repair the Goldeneye Doll and she'd aided 007 in reaching him. He wanted to explain his relief that Goldeneye wasn't gone entirely. He rather wanted to confess that he had been the one to give 004 access to the Goldeneye main frame, allowing him to upload 9EYES, that 004's silver tongue had convinced him that it was unfair that Perseus Holmes (as he had once been called) was the only one able to truly communicate with the AI. 004 had claimed that the AI had no compassion for anyone but the boy who had once saved them, that it had no regard for privacy and that people's lives were falling apart because of it. He'd then raised the idea that it was corrupt, that although Perseus had protected Goldeneye in his childhood, another attempt had clearly been made and had this time been successful as there was evidence of corruption in the higher ranks; making comments about M's husband and his ease at getting anything he wanted. Perseus had changed his mind once they had been before the main frame, refusing to give 004 access, but it had been too late; Tiago had knocked him out and uploaded 9EYES.

What had followed was now known as The Fall; it was a nicer term than massacre and it hinted at an ability to stand back up. Personally, Q thought it referred to the old saying 'Pride comes before the fall', which was so apt that it was almost painful to consider. Mankind that been smug in how well it was doing, having figured out a working balance of AI and human labour, ensuring people had jobs and that life was well aided by machines.

"I'm not sure what else we can do until one of the agents find Ti- 004." His name wasn't used anymore; M was unable to have him officially struck off as an agent until they could update the records, which were all on computer. Paper files had gone out of fashion centuries earlier, as their computers were now paper-thin, hard-wearing and flexible enough to be folded up and stuffed into a pocket. Her frustration at their situation and at Tiago Rodriguez became evident when she refused to acknowledge the man as any kind of person, a number to be spat instead of a name, and he would lose that when (not if, she was more optimistic than Q) they got back into the database. Plus Rodriguez's ego was so big that it would set his teeth on edge to know his name wasn't considered important information.

She conceded his point with a tilt of her head before moving on. "How about communication? Have you any way to break through their jam? You're not an agent and I dislike losing all contact with you."

"Yes, actually." He smiled and pushed his glasses up. "Radio."

"Radio?" She raised her brow slightly. "But that uses the same digi-"

But Q was already shaking his head when he interrupted. "Not digital. This is going back nearly half a millennium but people used to use radio waves to transmit their messages rather than cyberspace."

"And it works as well?"

"We'll only be able to transmit audio, but I've been building some Radio Communication Sets and we've been able to make them work across HQ." He dropped his gaze for a moment, fingers sliding to the button-hole that no longer had a button to pair with; no one was exactly going out shopping these days. "We need to test it further. I'm fairly certain it will work, but I don't want to risk a failure when it's needed. I've only had access to a few schematics and I didn't want to risk hunting through cyberspace long enough to be noticed and have them realise what I'm trying."

"How far out do you want to go to try it out?"

"Not just distance, but for over and underground contact and to look into what might block the signal. I'm hoping that because it's so old that they won't have anything up. The AI are designed to be efficient in all things and to devote time and resources to the upkeep of something so obsolete would be wasteful."

"Alright, you have my approval for these tests, but I want you to take a 00 every time you go off site." She looked down at her computer, fully disconnected to the internet but not useless. "Who will be going to test these things?"

"Myself at some point. I want to be here for some attempts and off site for others. Steve Blunt and Abbie Chambers would be best in the effort too, they've been helping me so have a pretty solid understanding of what's going on with everything and what can be fiddled with if there is a problem when I'm not stood beside them."

"You take 007." Q had no objections to this; Peter got tetchy if anyone else was assigned to his guard, likely because the man had helped raise him. "Edward has been itching to get out so he can go with Blunt and Chambers can have Léo."

"Thank you." He bit his tongue on any complaints though. While Abbie would have no problems with 009, the reason for 001's restlessness was that he'd fucked Steve and was trying to get away from the issues they had apparently refused to discuss. He left them to it though, knowing that while other department heads might have made a point to get this resolved in their current climate; Q rather suspected that as a twenty year old genius who had only gone as far as two mutual and rather unspectacular hand jobs in an empty storeroom when he'd still been in education, before he' been officially employed… well, they weren't going see him as an authority figure on this particular issue.

A loud knock on the door frame jolted him out of his thoughts. Manon was standing at the door, her usually calm expression badly frayed. "Sorry, ma'am but… 0013 just got back with her report. Q, Hinx found 006."

"What happened?" He asked softly.

"Andy's dead." She whispered, her features cracking. Everyone here was close as everyone lived here. Home no longer translated to a house, but a small room with a single bed and whatever they had managed to bring with them before the lockdown began. "He found that Tia- I mean that 004 was part of a larger organisation, but that was all. He never got the chance to make a full report. Briony is getting patched up now, but she'll be fine."

"I… right. Good. Thank you, Manon." She slipped back into the corridor, her light steps difficult to hear through the mild shock that was settling over him. Andy Renton had been a retired agent that had come back after The Fall; he'd been around MI6 for longer than Q had been alive.

"Get a move on with this radio, Quartermaster. It's bad enough that we are battling the AI, we don't need another organised body in the mix. And go see R, if you're going to make this attempt at fixing things any time soon, you're going to need more rations. I need you to stand up against strong winds." She informed him without a hint of a smile on her lips, though it could been seen in her eyes. Q nodded and stumbled out.

* * *

A month later saw Q carefully blowing the dust away as he carved a new name into the wall of the fallen; Scarlett Papava – 005. Those with a call sign were remember by both name and sign, others with the department. Above her was Cedric Mason – 0011; Avellina Melis – 0012; Olof Karlsson – Rations; Bodil Larsen – Q Branch; Andrew Renton – 006… They'd lost a fair few in a month with only a little to show for it.

Max Denbigh, a high-up official when MI5 had still been around, was neck deep in whatever was going on with this organisation, a follower with visions of how great the world could be once the population had been culled and the AI coaxed into submission. Apparently they were confident that 9EYES could be controlled and forced to do what they wanted him to.

The final piece of information had been gathered by 007, hours earlier. He'd transmitted the information via radio… Their foe was called SPECTRE and they had various holes that they'd taken cover in. Peter had given them a bunch of name and locations before…

Q raised his hand and once more began to carve; Peter Branston – 007.

A tear trickled down his cheek as he stepped back and scanned the wall, gaze drifting almost automatically to Lancelot Boothroyd – Q.

It was his twenty-first birthday in a week and instead of celebrating, Q could no longer imagine what life would be in a week. Shutting his eyes, he finally let himself drop to the ground and shuffle to press his back against the wall. The man who used to walk him to cubs, who had collected him from education centres and attended the progress meetings; the man who had made dense, sickly birthday cakes and insisted on teaching Q how to dance…

The idea that he was gone made Q feel more isolated and vulnerable than he could have ever expected. But being an adult didn't seem to lessen the pain, just as it hadn't when his grandfather had died a year earlier. Now, he didn't have anyone left to come and wrap an arm around his shoulders.

He didn't have an agent he fully trusted at his back either. It would have to be 001 who went with him when he returned to Goldeneye's main frame. No, it wasn't that Q didn't trust 001 but he didn't have the same bond with him. The attempt would need to be soon though.

R (who in recent years was no longer a part of Q Branch but was now Rations-master, the head of a new, vital department) had explained that the supplies were getting dangerously low. In a meeting this morning, she had raised her concerns and M had taken her seriously. Peter had been killed in the night, his information relayed to all who needed to know in the morning and M had made a drastic decision. While Q and 001 tried to revive Goldeneye, they would send a large portion of their remaining forces to taken down SPECTRE. Even if Goldeneye couldn't be revived, hopefully they would halt 9EYES for long enough to stop SPECTRE from being quite so omniscient.

It was a desperate move and when he went back, they would head out… however, the young man had begged for a few moments to say goodbye to the man who had been a father to him for so many years; M, in a rare act of sentiment, had agreed.

Nonetheless, Q pulled himself up and dried his eyes. This had to work.

It had to.

* * *

A/N: This whole thing came about from me imagining Raoul Silva singing Shiny from Moana...


	2. Chapter 1

"Captain! I need a runner."

James Bond limped slowly into the station, dropping into a chair as the lad in charge of the desk scurried over to him.

"What'd you come 'ere for, Mickey?" he asked in horror as blood trickled into Bond's eyes. "You need the medic!"

"Jim, go get Harris." The captain interrupted his fretting and sent him away. "We're hoping that having him on the desk will give him better people skills, but he's just as bossy as ever for the moment." The handsome man explained as he watched Jim leave, the mild irritation in his expression melting away as he turned to look at the agent.

Bond grunted in reply, accepting the soft cloth from the captain to hold to his face. He didn't really care for the overeager puppy type of worker, they had a tendency to get underfoot.

"To business then, Bond. What happened?" Captain Charles Robinson was the chief of the South Bound Isles and the one who had requested an undercover agent from the Greenwich Isles, not quite their closest neighbours but far enough away that no one else knew Bond.

"Scaramanga is dead." He stated bluntly, frowning as the cloth showed more blood than he had been expecting.

"Excellent. The body?"

"Left on his little island. It's in a room of mirrors with a bullet hole through the chest." He smirked slightly, still pleased that he had beaten the assassin's trickery.

"And his friends?" Robinson asked as he scribbled down notes.

"All dead. But the woman was shot by Scaramanga."

"Why?"

"Switched sides." He replied smugly, it really had been too easy. "She said that he really was just a freelance assassin with no loyalty to anyone but himself."

Robinson looked relieved. "Good. That's good. I was worrying about how big this criminal network is." A smile quirked at his lips slightly. "It's nice to know we have some villains left who are just in it for themselves."

"I'll need to type out my note." Bond took advantage of the silence and pulled himself up, feeling older than his thirty years.

"The writer is in the corner. I'll go get some wax to seal it with."

* * *

"His name is Auric Goldfinger." Mallory stated, the crisp lines of his uniform ruined by the thick bandages around his arm; even the Chief of Police got pulled into action occasionally, and at least Mallory didn't shy away from it like other chiefs had. "We have reason to believe he's been poisoning the competition."

"A farmer?" Bond resisted the urge to pull a face as he flicked through the pages of his next assignment. Life in the middle of nowhere tended to be quiet; he much preferred the jobs he could sail to, which involved a certain amount to thinking. Farmers, in his experience, did not have elaborate plans that needed both brains and brawn to unravel. "Why is a farmer trying to kill people?"

"Price for food is pretty low. Take out enough people that you're the main contender and you can put the prices up."

"Wonderful." It wasn't that he hated his job, but sometimes it really was a bit dull.

"Remember to take your badge this time."

"Sir."

"Bond." And Mallory's attention left him to focus on a file on the desk; a clear dismissal.

He never had relaxed into a comfortable working relationship with Mallory; the older man finding him too jaded and bitter to be entirely reliable and Bond resented him for not being the previous M, but Bond was by far the best agent they had and he had little of anything outside his work, so the two men continued to work with work with each other as well as they could.

Bond considered himself too professional to huff, but as he flicked through the new file he was tempted to grouch in frustration; at least his last assignment had involved sailing to another island. Work for an agent could be thrilling, but it wasn't consistent. The fact that very few people travelled between islands was the only reason he was able to work as a regular officer with a badge and a uniform in between off-isle assignments, even if it was dull work.

007 or Officer Bond, but he wasn't allowed to muddle the two up. His licence to kill and his disregard for the rules was strictly only for working as an agent. As an officer, he had to obey the letter of the law and read people their rights before arresting them.

Heading through the station, stopping only to exchange a few flirty words with Moneypenny who always tolerated him with good humour, Bond headed to the basement to speak with Q.

In the olden days, the quartermaster was responsible for digital defence; the one who had kept the intelligence agency hidden from the AI and created smart weapons that could think for themselves. The current Q, Paul Brown, provided Bond 007 with weapons, identities, lock picks or whatever else he would be needing, such as transport. Unlike M who could admittedly put up with Bond with a certain amount of good grace, Brown could not. The man made no effort to hide how little he liked the agent who equally made no attempt to keep the quartermaster happy; the only equipment he brought back on a regular basis was his gun, and even that had returned in several pieces on more than one occasion.

"Bond." He sighed unhappily as the man walked into his branch. "M sent a message down. Here."

Brown took him over to a side table and handed over a gun. "Your regular weapon, a little scratched up but that's your own fault. It still works. New lock picks as our other ones didn't come back." He paused to glare at Bond, who smirked slightly at him. "Intelligence says Goldfinger is staying at the Gregorian Hotel up north, so you have a reservation there. I've given you a pad to write down any important information and a wax kit in case you need to send a runner. I wouldn't have bothered but when it comes to poison I don't want to take chances… even if it is you I'm giving extra equipment to."

"Would it help if I promised to bring back everything I don't use?" Bond asked, still smirking as he watched the genuine irritation on Brown's face.

"No because you'd be lying." He snapped. "Now, sign here and leave."

"Thank you." Bond replied as he signed out his equipment, knowing his manners would make the other man twitch.

"Bring it all back." Brown growled before marching over to his craftsmen as Bond sauntered out.

* * *

Standing in front of the mirror, Bond stared at himself. No matter how many times he wore it, his police uniform always felt like a disguise; as though he truly was 007 and Officer James Bond was just another face he wore.

The smart, blue clothing was flattering as he had chosen the lighter outfit in concession to the heat as spring hesitantly edged towards summer; after all, he was confident that he wouldn't need the thicker, more protective uniform while he went and asked a few questions.

His smile was as confident as ever, easily pulled up into his eyes with years of practice to make it appear genuine. He had once been able to make his eyes twinkle in a particular way, but Vesper had taken that from him years ago when she had betrayed him and then denied him the chance to save her life; she had allowed herself to drown rather than face her guilt and James had watched her… he'd gone sailing for months afterwards, seeing more of their world than he ever had before in an attempt to outrun her spectre, but he'd returned in the end and M, the previous M, had been waiting with his title: 007. Vesper had taken his ability to feel deep, joyful emotions and left behind an endless well of misery, anger and at times, apathy, but she had made him an efficient officer and agent.

In addition, he couldn't deny that the friendships he had made working for the covert agency hidden within the police were a large part of what he lived for. Alec Trevelyan was a fellow orphan he had met at a young age, but while James' parents had died in a climbing accident, Alec's had been killed by the AI; Alec could remember living in a small colony on the mainland, but when he had been twelve, a hunting party had drifted too far and been spotted by sentinels. Most of the settlement had been slaughtered, but Alec had been lucky enough to escape, having been small enough to hide and old enough to know how to sail. Alec was a year younger than him, but his arrival at the foster house had helped James adapt to life again.

Jack Giddings and Tiffany Baines were two other agents that he was close to, comfortable enough to go drinking with them when they were excused the limit. Something all four of them loved about being agents. Having proven themselves apt at sailing meant they could travel to other places and experience other cultures, some of which differed from their own. The Greenwich Isles, while being home to the agents and so the place they loved instinctively, had a firm limit on how much anyone could drink. Everyone who drank more than two units had to stay in secure housing for the night. No one was allowed more than four units. Agents were excused the limit on occasion, but they had to be in secure housing from when they started drinking and couldn't leave until it was all gone from their system; the allowance existed due to recommendations by psychologists long dead, who had claimed that to send agents out to live immoral lives meant that they had to do something to keep them sane. Thus, agents were allowed to drink to excess once a month, and they often did so together for the company of other inebriated people who understood their struggles. There were twelves agents all together, from 001 to 0013 (there had never been a 004, but he didn't know why) but Bond was only close to 006, 002 and 0012. Bill Tanner was not quite a friend to Bond, but they were close enough that when James asked how he was, he was interested in the answer; and Eve Moneypenny he had a similar friendship with, but she was too close to Mallory for Bond to trust her completely.

It was a small group of people, Bond mused as he smoothed out the lines down his front, but they mattered enough to keep him trying… Well, he reasoned with a smirk that really completed the image he saw in the mirror, that and the thrill he got from his harder assignments. His favourite still being from two years ago when he and 006 had broken into a research facility in a dam, shut down the work the scientists had been doing and then blown up the computer systems they had been working on; the mayor would have had the right to send the scientists to the bottom of a deep, dark hole for the rest of their lives. Any attempt to gain access to the internet, to use the machine's technology… it was punishable by death in most settlements but they had shot the men with guns and let the others flee. However, the best part had come after he had saved Alec's arse and they had killed pretty much anyone remaining; they'd stolen a bizarre flying machine that neither of them had ever encountered before; Bond had only just flicked through a manual for it when he had been creeping through the facility and had seen it on a desk but it hadn't stopped them from taking it as soaring through the air like some kind of bird. They'd crashed back to the Earth not long afterwards and Bond had had to drag an unconscious Alec for nearly a full day on his back before sailing them home, but both of them agreed that it had been worth it.

Grabbing his hat as he left, he headed up to the roof and glanced around. It was a warm day and down below, Bond could see the hotel pool half filled with people splashing around. There were yet more people lounging around on towels and chairs, enjoying the heat… further over were tables, with several, likely looking individuals. He crept closer to the edge to watch; Goldfinger could well be one of them, but a sneeze distracted him from beginning his search. Leaning over the edge, Bond noticed a balcony beneath him; there was a bikini-clad young woman peering over the railings with binoculars pressed to her face, and Bond's attention was momentarily stolen by the spread knees and shapely backside that pushed up into the air.

Quick to adapt his plans, Bond jumped easily over the roof railings and down onto the balcony below, the thump of his landing causing the woman to jump and spin around. Bond smiled pleasantly at the pretty young thing as he crouched down beside her and lifted the binoculars from her loose grasp.

"You can't be here." She whispered as her eyes flitted down to where Goldfinger was sat, confirming Bond's suspicion that she worked for him.

"You're using a light to signal down to him." Bond tutted as he raised the binoculars to his eyes, quickly taking in what was going on. "That's cheating."

"He'll kill me if I don't do what he wants!" She objected, but she didn't move to stop Bond. Sometimes, the uniform worked better than an actual disguise.

"Do you just help out with his gambling? Or does he have you involved in … other areas." He asked, giving her a flirty smile as he looked over her.

"Not like that!" She hastened to point out as she leaned over to grab a robe, pulling it on.

Bond's attitude dropped into professionalism as she came and sat down nearby, her back to the railings. "But more than just gambling."

"I help with filing. He doesn't like typing up and keeping the actual business running. He'd rather spend time shouting at workers, watching the competition and raising extra funds." She indicated behind her, where Goldfinger was starting to get irritated at the lack of help he was receiving, his gaze flicking up to the balcony, but he seemed unable to make Bond out from across the distance.

Bond waited a moment as he sensed her hesitating. "But?"

"Karl Stromberg." She said in a rush, her eyes flitting around as though she thought someone else was there with them. "He's been in talks with him, secret meetings that I'm not supposed to know anything about."

"That guy who thinks we should be travelling out to the AI cities and steal their tech?" Stromberg skirted the line of what was legal, though Bond was sure there was more going on than they knew about.

"He's been using the internet." She stated, her face creasing with fear. It was an offence where they lived, with a penalty of fifty years in jail and the chance for more if any details of the activity were discovered.

"Right." He glared down at Goldfinger, anger starting to bubble deep within him. Some people went out of their bloody way to cause trouble, and using the internet was just asking for the machines to find them.

"They're planning a long sailing trip." She continued, a smile touching her lips that showed her pleasure at the idea that he was leaving. "To Greece."

"Greece?" He asked, his mouth almost dropping at the idea that someone would so willingly travel that distance.

"We've heard rumours that there is a weapon against the AI there." She shrugged, her robe slipping from her shoulder, but Bond wasn't interested in flirting anymore. There was something far more exciting going on.

"I've heard rumours that The Fall Bringer lives there." He countered, recalling the stories of his childhood; a child raised by the AI, given full access to them and working his way into MI6, the force that had stood against the machines. The boy had gained their trust and then betrayed them, giving the AI full access. It had resulted in The Fall, mankind's biggest massacre. It was the reason that people lived scattered on islands and coastlines, a few settlements further inland and into mountains to help farm crops and raise animals with more space.

The cities hadn't been used by humans in centuries, the once great trade routes now only used by machines. People sailed if they needed to get anywhere, but very few people were willing to take the dangerous trips unless they had to. It was how 007 could travel to islands for undercover work and not be recognised; only the 00 agents were officers willing to sail and able to do whatever they must in order to complete their missions. They were named, as many in the police force were, after the old warriors of MI6; the 00s were the most able officers, M was the head of the force, Q was in charge of traps, explosives and other weaponry. Regular officers, on rare occasions, took on the names of the MI6 fallen as titles in recognition of valour.

And they had the names of a large number of the fallen; a handful of the few photographs they had, images captured with technology that they were only just recreating, were of a wall with names carved into it; with long columns of names of the dead and those names had been picked out by analysts, who had spent long portions of time slowly deciphering the tiny writing.

When James Bond had received the title 007, he'd spent hours slowly searching through the notes from the photographs, trying to find who had held the title before. He knew who had been killed for him to have the opportunity to gain the title; Thomas Doyle had been twenty one years older than Bond and had had a long, successful career. Peter Branston had been the oldest 007 they had record of, as they had no way to access files that came before The Fall without the risk of the AI discovering their locations.

And it was a concern. While there had been no stories of island settlements being wiped out in Bond's lifetime, there had been people killed by the AI in the not too distant past; Capital Towns and larger gatherings obliterated as they signalled their locations to the machines. Alec's old home had simply been too close to the tech cities on the mainland. It was the reason travel was so unpopular; the dangerous trip across the seas combined with the fact that there was no information on the size of the machine surveillance network, it was impossible to know where you could go and where you would be seen.

"The Fall Bringer was a scape goat." The woman beside him scoffed, bringing Bond back to the present. "He was an innocent person who had an affinity for machines and when he died the authorities used him to avoid the blame resting on themselves."

"You're a conspiracy theorist?" He grinned warmly, always amused at how people liked to find mysteries and twist the truth into something else.

"It won't be a conspiracy theory when we one day uncover the truth." She answered, but Bond realised that she was getting defensive and changed the subject before he lost his chance.

"Do you know if your boss has any more of these secret meetings arranged?" He pressed, authority ringing clear in his voice. She barely hesitated as she nodded, a quick glance over his uniformed torso before she replied.

"There is one tonight. That's why he's trying to raise the extra money." She sighed and stood up, wandering inside and over to the desk. "I'll write down what you need."

* * *

"Nuclear weapons?" M asked, his face briefly creasing in genuine confusion. "How on Earth is that going to help?"

"Something about hiding people underwater and setting off enough weapons to eradicate the machines." Bond replied calmly.

M made a disgusted noise as his attention went back to the report Bond had just given him. It seemed as though Stromberg and Goldfinger weren't on exactly the same page. After the men had hashed out the details of getting to Greece, to the isle of Serifos and finding this Fall Bringer, Stromberg had left to prepare for the journey. However, Goldfinger had remained where he was until, nearly an hour later, several more men arrived; they appeared to be sailors, their tattered clothing, curious dialect and the strong briny scent that followed giving them away as strangers to the island.

"Is Goldfinger still planning to make the trip?" M asked, eyes still moving over the words.

"I don't think he's told Stromberg yet, but it sounded like he is going to stay here and prepare for any eventuality."

"He wants to live underwater and kill anyone and everyone else." M grouched softly, likely talking to himself but out loud in case Bond needed to correct his facts; it was a habit he only had with Hunter, Trevelyan and Bond, all senior agents with whom he had enough trust to allow the glimpse into his thought process. It had taken Bond a long time to reach this level of trust with Mallory. While they didn't much like each other, that was more of a personal thing, they did have trust. "Why is he suddenly developing plans to stop the AI? Is it a plot to be a hero and get money? Does he know something that we don't?"

"Greed?" Bond suggested, having already considered the question. "Either for money, power or the celebrity that it will bring him to be the one who wipes the AI out."

"Hopefully that's all." M mused, his expression dark. "007, you will go to Greece, to the island of Serifos. While you prepare, I'll send 006 to find any more information. The plan is set sail at dawn."

"Yes sir."

* * *

The journey began with a larger challenge than Bond had expected, his Jamaican Sloop objecting to the bad weather that the agent refused to find harbour for; he had reason to hurry now. As he had sailed away from the familiar seas, leaving behind the specks of land he knew as home, he had spotted something.

It had flown through the sky, too big to be an insect, too steady in the high winds to be a bird… His whole body had turned cold at the realisation: The machines had found them. One hand on the mast as he stared back, Bond had battled a strange urge to return home before he had even tried to accomplish his mission, his heart warring with his brain as he reasoned that the best way to save them would be to find the Fall Bringer and make him talk to the AI. But the wet, windy weather hadn't allowed him to muse on it for long and he had returned to tightening his halyard. While he was thankful that there was no lightning, despite hearing distant rumbles of thunder, the storm still took nearly the full day to outrun; it was only while he was finding a safe place to drop his anchor (as his anchor line wasn't designed to be used this far out, in such deep water) and sleep that Bond realised that he was working more by the light of the full moon than anything else.

"Well, shit." He swore, lighting up a lamp as he headed into his small cabin to consult his map. He knew they were accurate up to a point, but he'd never sailed as far as he was planning to.

Once he'd prepared his sloop for the night, he half fell into bed. He wasn't sure if it was more exhausting to have spent the day trying to keep his bow at an angle to the waves to avoid capsizing or wondering if he was going to have to do it again tomorrow. He emptied his mind enough to fall into a light doze and awoke to the sun creeping up over the nearby islands, its still-cool rays promising heat. Bond grinned and grabbed his damp clothing, putting it out to dry as the weather did indeed improve.

This was the sort of sailing that he loved best, enough of a wind that he didn't need to risk using the old solar powered engine, but not so powerful that he was in danger of losing control. As the day wore on, Bond basked in the sun like a reptile that required the heat to survive. Summer wasn't in full flow yet, the last vestiges of a cooler spring hanging on with determination… but all memory of cold rain and sheets of hail and snow were left behind as the cool breeze ruffled his hair and the sun kept him comfortable.

There really was nothing like it…

The only problem was that he was alone, having left Alec behind to face whatever doom the mechanical drone brought… and the thought chilled him more effectively than if clouds had covered the sky. He knew he had made the best choice, the most logical one; but that didn't change the fact that he wanted to stand beside his friends as they faced the trouble that approached… he wasn't sure if it was Stromberg or Goldfinger who had alerted the AI to their location, but he rather hoped that Alec shot both of them anyway.

Thankfully, he was now travelling quickly after a disappointing first day, the bad weather he encountered the next day barely even counting as 'bad' in comparison. He had soon left behind the accurate measurements of his map and he chose to stick areas with visible land for now to avoid becoming hopelessly lost.

Twice, he stopped for supplies, smiling pleasantly at people as he told them half-truths and outright lies. He engaged in discussions of the Fall Bringer with several different people, working through their odd dialects to realise that not everyone called him by that title; the first time he stopped, the woman he spoke to explained how he had been a child, foolish as children were but not given the chance to correct his mistake. On the second island he stopped at, the stories claimed that the Fall Bringer had been a friend to the machines and tricked by humans into betraying them, which had started the war.

By the time Bond actually reached Serifos, he didn't know what or who he was going to find. As he stepped onto the beach, adrenaline giving him enough of a boost to walk across the thick, untouched sand, Bond gaped in mounting horror.

The buildings of the people who had once lived here were beautiful, gleaming white in a way that was not natural… there had to be machines active on the island, keeping what had once been homes intact and spotless…

Were there sentinels dotted around, keeping watch over this person? Would he encounter fighting AI, capable of learning and adapting faster than he could? Were there drones that could kill him from the air? He'd heard rumours, stories passed down through the generations of what the machines could do… How long did he have?

Taking a deep breath, Bond forced his weary legs to move. The land itself was gorgeous, the hills attractive in their blossoming summer colours and the fresh smell of the Earth was more uplifting than it should have been given the situation. At the top, in a prominent position was a building that clearly didn't fit in with the aesthetic of the island. It had walls made of a silver metal which stood like a cube, ugly in comparison with the dainty houses dotted across the island elsewhere. It looked like it was designed to be a fortress except that the pathway that led to it, with trees along each side and flowers around the base of the house didn't fit with that.

The whole thing was bizarre.

Feeling like he was on a suicide mission, Bond moved with the thrill of danger and approached the AI woman who was on her knees by a path of flowers.

"Hello." He said, almost twitching as he resisted the desire to grasp his gun; somewhere like this would probably have heavy surveillance, even if Bond was too far behind the AI to recognise it.

"You are human." She stated, turning to observe him. She had likely once been a beautiful replica of a human, perhaps indistinguishable from the real thing, but unlike the island which was perfectly maintained, her skin was patchy and Bond could spots what looked like glowing wires underneath.

"Yes. I'm looking for someone." He told her, honestly.

"Q." She said, standing up and watching him.

Bond frowned in confusion. "Is he the one who can speak to computers?"

"He is my friend." She replied. "I hoped someone who come for him. He's been asleep for many years."

Bond nodded, trying not to be unnerved by her; she really was very humanlike, even her blinking was frequent but irregular, like a real person. "I need his help."

"He tried to help but 9EYES stopped him. I brought him here to keep his safe."

"My home will be destroyed if he doesn't help." Bond explained, his instinct telling him to be honest. "We need to stop the… aggressive machines from killing everyone." It had never occurred to him that the machines might have individual minds, such as robots that kept the houses clean, or dug up weeds, or kept safe the young man known as Q… if minds was even the right word. They didn't have much terminology for the machines, having kept as far away from them as possible.

She stood and stared at him again for a long moment, as though thinking about what to do while the sun beat down on them. Eventually she nodded her head and led him into the cube, through the metal corridors and up the stairs. The whole place was the same grey colour, as though it had never occurred to her to add some colour inside as well as out… but perhaps it never had. He wondered who this person he would meet was: Lancelot Boothroyd? Perseus Holmes? Brendan Hart? Someone who had taken the mantel of Q that they had no record of?

Walking into a room with odd boxes sat on tables and sheets of strangely clear paper lying beside them, it took Bond a moment to notice the large box, with small holes perfectly cut into the side. The AI woman inserted her fingers into the holes and Bond stepped closer and something inside began to hiss; it sounded like an old valve releasing air, but the steam that rose was cool in a way that Bond really didn't understand.

"You will need to wait while he regains himself. It has been six hundred and twenty seven years, rounded up, since he was frozen. This cannot be rushed."

"I can wait." Bond answered, trying to remain calm.

"You will sleep. There is a bedroom when you exit this room, turn left down the corridor and enter the room on the right."

Her face gave nothing away, but Bond decided to obey her command. He didn't know if all AI could feel emotions, but this one came across as protective of her charge.

"I will. Do you have a name, either of you?" He enquired, wanting more information before he left.

"My name is Goldeneye. His name is Q." She didn't turn to assist her friend yet, continuing to stare Bond down as she waited for him to leave.

Goldeneye… It was nice to have a name for her, but he supposed he would have to wait until this Q woke up before he got a name. She didn't seem to understand the difference between a name and a title.

"Right. Thank you." He left to collapse onto a grey bed in a windowless grey room.

He really hoped Q could fix everything with some speed…


	3. Chapter 2

Waking up to stare at the grey roof and feeling a long way from rested, Bond groaned softly; the whole night had been spent flitting in and out of sleep, and that was assuming he had slept for a full night. The bed was hard and somewhat uncomfortable, but it was at least clean; Bond could sleep nearly anywhere though, the main problem had been the lack of…. anything. There were no windows, no sounds, a lack of anything he was used to. The man had simply never noticed how used to background noise he was until he had tried to rest without it.

Still feeling groggy, Bond pulled himself up and off the bed. There were no mirrors around to check his appearance, but he pulled back on his comfortable but stylish trousers, the light-weight green shirt he had been wearing before tugging on socks and shoes. He would see if Goldeneye had any food around for him to eat.

Managing not to flinch at the door sliding smoothly open when he approached it, Bond moved quietly back to the room that the Fall Bringer (Q, he corrected himself mentally) had been kept in; upon finding it empty, the agent left and began looking into rooms as he passed by them and the doors slid open. At first, the rooms he passed contained little more than the odd boxes and other devices that sat on tables, one had chairs around the table and another one had a bed in it as well; however after he turned a corner and started down the next corridor, a soft blue light spilled out the room on the left when the door opened.

Taking a deep breath, Bond stepped inside. There were little balls of metals with arms that were rolling around on the floor, each moving small bits and pieces that he didn't recognise; Goldeneye was stood in front of floating letters that glowed purple and changed when she touched them; in the corner of the room, there was a tall cylinder filled with water that glowed blue, the source of the light he had seen.

"You have not slept for eight hours." Goldeneye informed him as he stepped closer to the tank.

"Couldn't sleep. This him?" There was a young man floating inside; his body covered from mid-thigh to bicep in a dark, skin-tight outfit and there was a mask over his mouth. As he hung there, Bond could see various wires and tubes coming from him, including one to his mouth, another to his temple and several to the back of his neck, there were a few that seemed to come out his lower spine, but it was hard to tell exactly without walking around.

"This is Q." She acknowledged, and Bond wasn't sure if he was imagining the warmth in her tone as she looked at the boy.

"He's young." The agent noted, stepping right up to the tank.

"We stopped him a week after his twenty first birthday." She said, her head dipping down as something that resembled regret flitted over her face but her long, dark hair tumbled forwards and obscured her expression.

"Twenty one." He murmured, blue eyes taking in the skinny, almost malnourished form. "That's a lot of guilt to hold at twenty one."

"He is guilty only of trusting the wrong person: someone who should have been reliable." Her tone was definitely sharper, which was interesting. Bond hadn't thought that AI could feel emotions.

But the agent didn't answer, simply nodding as he returned to observing Q. The young man wasn't moving at all, nor was the water he was in; everything was as still as a painting, and the blue light that shone from the top and bottom of the cylinder lit Q eerily.

He was a skinny thing though, the suit not thick enough to hide the jut of his ribs and it didn't cover his gaunt face at all. His arms and legs were bare, and while thin they did at least show evidence of muscle, as though the young man had been fit at one point, before food had become scarce. Bond didn't really have much knowledge of things during the Fall; he knew that people had gone into hiding, those who could escape getting away and those left behind had had to survive on what rations had been put away. Apparently, those rations either hadn't gone far for long or the actual ration packs hadn't meant to be consumed alone. Most of the agents had emergency kits hidden away, and inside them were packs of dehydrated food that would create a meal when mixed with water, but these were only for emergencies and not designed for people to live off for more than a week or two.

If Q had been frozen when he had been surviving on rations, then perhaps his size was to be expected. But Bond startled slightly as he noticed the state of Q's hands and knees; the knees had mild burns on them but seemed to have been covered in a paste that hadn't dissolved in the water… but his hands were awful. These too were covered in paste, but it wasn't thick enough to hide the damage. It was badly blistered, with the skin looking almost charred in places and peeling around the edges.

"What happened to his hands?" he pulled his gaze away from the boy for a moment to look at the AI.

Her eyes dropped to Q's hands before she looked into Bond's face. "He was damaged in attempting to stop the war." She said softly. "He crawled through venting made of hot metal to reaching my mainframe and fix my programming."

"Your mainframe?" He startled and stepped away from her. Was her programming to blame for the war?

"9EYES was added to my mainframe, overriding my programming and taking control." She sounded sad, even though her face was blank. "Q had blocked an attack to my mainframe as a child and he was familiar with my mainframe so he was trying to fix the damage. The first attempt allowed him to reboot my doll, but the next effort saw him captured. We rescued him from his captor and decided to let him sleep until the damage could be repaired."

"His captor?" Bond asked, trying to get his head around terms like mainframe and 9EYES; it was like she was using words from a totally new language.

"004. He wanted to have a neural interface, like the one we gave Q and so took him to study. 004 had him for nearly two weeks before I managed to extract him and get him safely away."

The police had never had a 004, but apparently for good reason; it sounded like the last one was a total dick. Bond had no idea what a neural interface was, but if it wasn't something easy to copy… curiously, Bond felt far worse as he looked at a part of history hanging quietly in the water than he ever had in reading all the tragedies that he'd that had been documented.

"Was there no one keeping an eye on him? Or was 004 supposed to be keeping him safe?"

"004 went missing after uploading 9EYES. My knowledge of the hunt is limited as there were no electronic records. I know only what Q told me as we left."

"Wait, 004 was the one who started the war too?" The guy was sounding worse and worse.

"As a member of SPECTRE, 004 believed that if the two dominant forms of life took each other out, then there would be space for whoever was left to claim command."

"What was SPECTRE? A group?"

"A terrorist organisation. They objected to my ability to observe and predict crime and so prevent it through working with authorities. They wished to corrupt it for their own gain."

"That sounds like two different ideas." He sat down on the floor, leaning back against the tank as he tried to understand. "They wanted to have crime, but they also wanted to be in charge?"

"At the time, they used corruption and extortion to achieve their objectives; usually to raise money. Their future aim was to have machine-life and those in charge of human-life to annihilate each other, so that they could take charge and run what remained of mankind of their own terms." She folded herself onto the floor elegantly in front of him as she spoke.

"Fuck." He swore, running his hand through his hair. "And I'm used to farmers trying to sell more food than anyone else and drug-dealers trying to kill their rivals. This is big…"

She opened her mouth to answer, but something else caught her attention. "Q!" she raised her voice as she stood, though she didn't actually lean over Bond to get closer to the tank.

Quickly getting to his feet and turning, Bond looked carefully into the tank. Light blue eyes were blinking groggily, flitting about without seeming to focus on anything. Bond leaned in, wanting to make some kind of a connection to someone who, by rights, should have died centuries earlier. But the boy didn't see him, instead lifting his hands slowly to pull at the mask.

"Leave it please, Q." Goldeneye said, her voice steady as she brought up the glowing, floating words again. "You need another half hour inside before you can try breathing on your own again."

The hands moved up higher to press at his eyes, then moved back to pinch by his temples.

"I have glasses in your prescription, along with some clothing. I will hand them to you when you emerge." She apparently recognised what he was asking for, but Bond just watched in silence as those hands drifted down to float by his sides.

"Can I do anything?" He asked, still watching the boy.

"There is clothing you can retrieve. If you leave this room and turn left, head down the corridor. The second room on the right has items I have put out for him."

"Understood."

He went slowly, aware that he had time to spare and now that he was awake and had something to think about, the grey didn't seem so oppressive.

004\. They never had had a 004, that particular title having never appeared on the wall of the fallen; apparently with good reason. He took the slow walk to try and get his head around the information he had just received before heading back and possibly getting even more. Q had a 'neural interface' and while Bond didn't know what that was exactly, he could take a guess. An interface had to do with two systems meeting and neural was to do with the nerves, so perhaps it was to do with controlling computers with your brain? Machines already basically controlled the world, so if 004 had managed that then he would have been able to take control of the world. But had he managed it? It was hard to say, knowing so little of the outer world.

Bond knew that SPECTRE at least hadn't managed their goal of having machines and humans wipe each other out; machines still had control of all the old major cities and towns and humans now lived scattered in small pockets – there was no evidence for a group governing the whole lot of them. Had 004 broken away from SPECTRE then? Had he used them to achieve his own means and then left afterwards? He'd had Q for nearly two weeks, if he had managed to copy what Goldeneye had given the young man… but would they know if 004 had taken over the machines? Bond didn't know anything about the man to be able to judge. He had no way to know if 004 would wipe out every one with his absolute power, if he would just settle down somewhere and be forgotten about, or if he would want the remaining humans to grovel before him each and every day…

No, 004 was a total unknown and he would need Goldeneye and Q to help him figure out that one. All Bond could say was that he was either immoral or amoral, having started the war that had wiped out most of humanity for his own selfish gain.

In the room, Bond easily spotted the piled of clothing on a table. Beside it lay a soft bag with several things inside, but Bond didn't bother to look at them, half assuming he wouldn't know what they were anyway. Instead, he added it to the top of the pile and carried everything back to the room with the tank.

When he returned however, the grey of the room had been replaced by fish; bright, colourful fish swimming around in calm waters that were a similar deep blue to the lights that lit Q's tank. He stopped dead and watched them for a moment in confusion.

"Q likes animals. These have a higher probability of keeping him calm than any other video." Goldeneye had apparently noticed the emotions he had tried to keep off his face as she pointed to a table for him to put his load down.

"I simply didn't realise the walls could… change." He replied, not quite as smoothly as he would have liked.

"My apologies. I did not check the level of current technology for humans who live on the outside."

He didn't answer but moved back over to watch Q, who was decidedly more alert. The young man inclined his head at Bond slightly who took in the sight of him once again, long limbs still so motionless as he hung in the water and nodded in return.

Bond was so far out of his depths that it was beyond ridiculous. While he considered himself very well informed on most topics, he was beginning to realise just how little he knew about the robots… about machine-life, he corrected himself as he remembered the phrase Goldeneye had used. She had referred to machines as a dominant form of life and he now rather suspected that 'life' might not be the wrong phrase. These machines seemed to live their own lives, keeping to the jobs they had been given but capable of interacting with the world around them, of taking in the different clues and factors and reaching accurate conclusions.

He had no idea if only the sentinels were designed to attack humans and most of the others were more accepting, or if most robots had instructions to stop humanity and Goldeneye was the exception; she sometimes said 'we' but he wasn't sure if she was referring to her mainframe, or if that was included when she said 'I', and 'we' meant separate robot… minds?

He sighed and pressed a hand to the glass, trying to settle the bubbling thoughts that threatened a headache. His main task here was to ensure that the drone he had seen wasn't going to bring an attack force down on Greenwich Isles. As much as he would have liked to send a runner back to base and double-check what he was meant to do out here, it would be impossible. Discussions on 004, the frivolous uses of video images that people used to have and the humanity of robots would have to wait until he got home… though only the second one could really be discussed and even then only as a debate. No one knew anything about 004 and even Brown, his quartermaster, wouldn't be able to say much about robots.

Long fingers touched the inside of the glass before a hand pressed against his own, separated by the tank and Bond lifted his head to stare into those eyes. He had no idea what the fuck he was supposed to do with this young man. Why had Goldeneye woken him? Just because another human had turned up? Was it really so random or had he passed certain tests that he didn't know about? Was Q meant to come home with him, or were they expected to go on a journey? His mind drifted to children's tales, where the prince rescued a princess and they lived happily ever after. Was that this kind of story? Would Q be able to check if the robots had blown up his home, claim they hadn't and then return with Bond to live out his days in a world that was likely as unfamiliar to Q as this one was to Bond.

"I need to drain the tank. If you wish to assist, please wait until the door is opened and he is unhooked from everything, then place him on the bed." Behind her, the low bed in the corner had been made into something of a nest, with blankets that Goldeneye had either had stashed in here somewhere, or had been bloody silent in collecting from elsewhere.

"I'll help." He replied, giving the young man a comforting smile as the lad narrowed his eyes slightly.

The water drain through the floor at a fairly slow rate, but Q seemed unable to get his feet under him and he staggered about, resembling a new born creatures on unsteady legs as he quivered for a moment the crumpled against the glass. His hands went to the mask as Goldeneye opened the door, but Bond didn't wait for her signal, instead choosing to hurry forwards and take the boy's arms.

Warm hands met cool skin, and as Goldeneye quickly removed the mask and the various wires and tubes, Q stilled to stare into Bond's eyes.

"Take him to the bed." The AI instructed, but the agent took a moment as he lifted one hand to cup Q's face gently.

"Hello." He whispered softly, focussing his whole attention on the lad and Q managed a weak smile in return. "Ready for me to move you?"

The young man nodded his head slowly, but he tensed up as Bond carefully gathered him up. He was heavier than expected though, and Bond almost raised his brow; either Q was in fact more muscled underneath the outfit than he could see or that 'water' he had been in hadn't been water at all and had affected how heavy he was.

"Need him drying off first?" He asked as he stood by the bed, not sure if he was meant to manoeuvre wet limbs into dry sheets.

"There are no towels." She informed him bluntly, making Bond grin slightly at the oversight.

"Spare sheets? It'll be good to get some of the water off him."

She nodded her head, stepping back from the glowing words to open a cupboard which was no longer grey but the same blue that was on the far wall, rippling like water.

He placed Q on the floor and unzipped his top, helping him to peel cool, wet arms out of the damp fabric. The agent discovered he was naked underneath the clothing when they got him out the shorts and Bond, who was helping the boy to stand from behind, saw his pale, skinny backside.

Bond smiled slightly, but he just wrapped the young man in the sheet, carefully patting his skin to dry him off. He didn't need to seduce anyone for this, nor would flirting help with anything just yet; though he couldn't tell whether or not he would be later, but it didn't seem likely until he got more information on what he was expected to do. Goldeneye was perfectly willing to co-operate it seemed, but he didn't know how Q was going to react to him demanding they save his home.

"Food, then sleep." Goldeneye suddenly spoke up and Bond was helping Q into pants and loose shorts. "For both of you."

Having not eaten since he had left his sloop, Bond very much supported this plan. "We okay to eat in here?" He asked, wondering if they could sit on the bed or needed to find a table.

"Sit. I shall rehydrate some packs for you." And with that she marched out the room, her dark hair bouncing with the force of her steps.

"Feeling better?" He asked, helping the young man to the bed before handing him a white t-shirt and sitting beside him.

Q tugged on his shirt awkwardly before squinting at Bond. "Wha- what's going on?" Q asked, his soft voice failing to hide his confusion as he opened the bag that had been dropped on the bed earlier. He pulled out a case, opened it and pushed the dark-framed glasses onto his face. "Oh!" he startled, before blushing and dropping his gaze.

"The name's Bond. James Bond." He introduced himself, even as he leaned over to tug blanket over Q's limbs.

"I'm Q." The young man answered with a wry smile, pushing dark, damp curls out of his face. "It's nice to meet you…" He didn't sound sure about that, but the agent didn't mind.

"I'd help update you on events, but I'm not entirely clear on what is happening myself." He explained, pulling Q into his arms as he shivered again.

"Did Tiago- I mean, has 004 found us?" Q asked, tilting his head back to look at Bond.

"No. You're well hidden from him, I think." Bond answered with a confident voice, trying to decide what he could say without Q panicking. "Goldeneye got you away safely."

"Oh good." He sighed in relief. "And not to sound rude but… well, who are you?"

"He is here for help to stop the destruction of his home." Goldeneye had returned, carrying two bowls.

Q pulled away from Bond and leaned against the wall as he accepted a bowl. "Your home?"

"There was a drone that went passed me as I left. It doesn't bode well." His face darkened as he thought of Alec, Mallory, Giddings and Baines and the trouble they faced while he was here.

"A drone." Q scoffed as he sipped his broth. "Don't you think you're overreacting? Drones go overhead all the time."

"Not on the outskirt settlements." Goldeneye cut in and Bond focussed on his meal, knowing they were edging towards telling Q how long he had been out.

Q lowered his own bowl and cocked his head slightly. "Outskirt settlements?"

"The humans who escaped settled mostly on islands and in other places where it was not too large a task to remove all devices that could be accessed by machine-kind."

"That's good." Q replied, drinking again. "I had wondered what had happened to those who got away."

"I've never heard of people spotting machines and not being killed soon after. I need to get back."

"What? James, what is it?" Q sat up straight, handing his empty bowl to Goldeneye as he clearly spotted something odd in the phrasing.

Bond finished his own broth before handing Goldeneye his bowl. As she left the room, Bond turned to Q, placing hands on his shoulders and looking into his eyes. "You've been asleep for a long time." He explained.

"How long?" Q asked in a small voice, clearly noticing the seriousness in Bond's tone.

"For more than six hundred years." He stated, watching Q's face crease.

"That… What? No. That can't be right. Six… What?" The young man was shaking his head, reaching his hands up to cling to Bond's.

"She wanted to keep you safe, I think."

"Don't be daft, James. M-More than six hundred is just…" He retched slightly, not bringing anything up, but Bond quickly made him lie down.

"So, what is your actual name then?" He asked casually, trying to distract Q from the shock.

"My name is Q."

"I thought Q was a title." He countered, smiling at the glower that twitched onto Q's face.

"It is. It means I am the quartermaster." He blew out a deep breath slowly. "I had a name, but for the safety of my family I no longer use it. It's the same with every department head."

"Didn't everyone know who you were anyway?" It wasn't quite a matter of everyone knew everyone on Greenwich Isles, but enough people knew him that even Bond had to go by his own name when he was home.

"With more than nine million people living in the capital city itself? No. One of my brothers was quite well known, but he has a flare for the dramatic and the news sites liked to report on him often."

"N-Nine million?" Bond gaped, there weren't that many people on the whole of Greenwich Isles. Trying to imagine that many people in one place was… impossible…

"It's far from the most populated city… or was, I guess." Q's voice wobbled.

"Do I want to ask?" Bond wondered aloud, not wanting Q to get distracted.

"Well, there is Tokyo in Japan with nearly forty million people and I think that is the most densely populated place, but some cities in India and China have about twenty five to thirty million."

"How do you feed that many people?" He murmured faintly, mind boggling at the thought as Goldeneye walked back in and headed straight over to her glowing purple display.

Q let out a short laugh. "Don't need to anymore I guess. But, I can't say I ever thought about it before. I was Quartermaster, not rations master and certainly not a farmer."

"What does the Quartermaster do? Ours provides weapons, transportation and a nagging about bringing things back in one piece."

"Ha!" Q let out another laugh, but this one sounded easier. "Somethings haven't changed then. So, are you some kind of spy, to have a Quartermaster?"

"I'm a police officer on my home isle, but I do undercover work on other islands as there isn't much travel so I can go without being recognised."

"Undercover? I don't see how you could be forgettable enough for that." Q's tone wasn't quite flirty, but combined with his expression, it hinted that he considered Bond objectively attractive.

"I do my job well." He assured the young man. "You still haven't told me about yours though."

"Similar, in some ways." Q shifted closer to the wall, giving Bond a bit more space on the bed. "With my department, I gave the agents weapons, including those which I designed myself. I organised transportation for agents to get where they needed to be and we often modified the technology to suit the agent and the mission. No one left with a warning to bring their equipment back.

"In addition to that, I spent a lot of time online, keeping us hidden from the AI and trying to keep track of how much information they had." Q patted the bed beside him as he yawned. Bond quietly lay down beside him. They weren't quite touching, but Q relaxed all the same. "Before I was Q, I still helped in weapons design and with communicating with the machines but mostly…" He yawned again. "Mostly I focussed in getting funds."

"You gamble?" Bond asked curiously, unable to see Q as a successful gambler. He'd had emotions on his face since he'd woken up.

"We didn't make money by gambling." He laughed. "I designed tech and patented it. We got plenty of money through that."

"You got some money." Corrected Goldeneye from across the room. "When you actually filled in the paperwork."

"Not much point." He shrugged. "A lot of it was for more efficient tech that was better for the environment. We were in the middle of a crisis even before the problems with AI. The planet was dying and our technology was too engrained in our lives to just change our habits. I put a lot of effort into making things better. Couldn't just limit who could access it based on money. Everyone needed to work to save the planet."

"Dying?" Bond muttered, in utter confusion. How did you kill a planet?!

"With machines as the dominant form of life, this problem has been reversed." Goldeneye offered over the top of him, which made Q smile gently.

"Oh good." The smaller man sighed, but Bond kept quiet as he slipped into slumber.

A few minutes, with Q breathing beside him, with the soft sound of water and changing colours from the video on the wall and with Goldeneye working in the room, Bond dozed off as well.

* * *

"I'm not going to throw up again, Goldeneye. You can talk to me about it. I need to know."

Over the last three days, Q had improved greatly as whatever treatment Goldeneye had given him had been very effective. He was noticeably stronger than before, more alert and blatantly restless.

"You must understand that everyone you once knew is likely dead." She asserted, firmly.

"I know." Q assured her, though just stating it always made him lose colour. "Sherlock, Mycroft and Eurus are dead but after six hundred years, they would be any way. But I need to understand what is happening. Is 004 dead?"

"I do not believe so. The answer is difficult to ascertain." They were sat outside on the grass, protected from the sun by the trees that lines the approach to the house. Goldeneye had wanted Q to get some fresh air, having deemed his immune system once again up to the challenges that the non-sterile land produced.

"After six hundred odd years he should be dead." Bond put in.

"Not necessarily, James. People could easily live over one hundred years before the war and if 004 could get the machines to focus on how to lengthen his life then it is entirely possible."

"Why though? What's he after?"

"Originally it was revenge against M. She made a deal that put him in the hands of the Chinese. He got himself out by a fluke and he came back, passed his tests and carried on as a 00… but it affected him in ways the psychologists didn't see." Q sighed, lying down to stare at the deep blue sky. "It seems ridiculous that we missed it now, but 00 agents have gone through long term capture before without choosing to return and work to bring us down from the inside. They didn't even have him a month! 007 was captured for about a year when I was younger and he came back to work without too much of an issue."

"And now what is 004 after?" He asked, unsure if revenge in that situation was really so bizarre, though it depended on the man and what he had been put through. He put asking about the old 007 to the back of his mind for now, but it would definitely come up again at some point if he could help it.

"Now… it could well just be ego. He was always a smug bastard, but he had the charisma that people liked him. World domination might not be too far out there."

"I wondered about that. If that's true, I don't think he has total control." Bond said reassuringly, for both himself and Q.

"Why not?" Q rolled over to stare up at him.

"Because no one has heard of him. If he had control of the machines, surely someone that egotistical would aim to be known. Would he really pass up the chance to have people bowing to him?"

"I… no." Q pushed his glasses up to rub his eyes. "No. He'd love the idea of people drooling after him. He used to come down to Q Branch all the time to show off and get us to say how clever he was."

"What else do you need to know?" Bond asked, resisting the urge to run a hand over Q's soft hair.

"Locations. I take it your mainframe is still just outside London?"

"No. 004 moved it when he made his own headquarters." Goldeneye informed him, her hair once again falling in her face as she looked down at the young man.

"You need fixing up, my dear." He murmured, reaching out with long fingers to ghost over the gaps where her wiring could be seen. "Do I want to ask where his HQ is?"

"Buckingham Palace."

"Shit. Of course it is." He sighed and dropped his arms, eyes drifting shut in the heat. "Do we just need to access your mainframe? Last time I tried, I failed to remove 9EYES."

"I have developed a virus, however it is dangerous."

"Meaning?"

"I won't able to transfer it onto something portable. You have two options. I upload it into you and when you link to my mainframe, you will need to be connected long enough for the virus to work. Option two; you don't take it with you but access the internet when you are there and upload the virus while there."

"Which will be faster?" Q asked, apparently having no difficulty in understanding the options.

"It will be faster if you carry the virus, however there is greater risk to you and your mind that way."

"How long to upload it to the mainframe?" Q sat up and turned to face Goldeneye.

"It will take approximately thirty seven minutes, assuming 004 has added layers of defence that I am expecting."

"I take it he has moved as much as possible to a separate system."

"Correct."

"That's no good. I can't be completely absent for that long." He curled in on himself, pressing his face in his hands.

Goldeneye paused for a moment, watching him. "At one point, you were working on remaining conscious while in Cyberspace." Q nodded his head without uncovering his face. "You should continue this effort."

"I tried for years and never managed."

"You never had such a need before. You have the time to focus on it while you travel to London and a companion to look after your physical body and note any signs of movement during your attempts."

"You aren't coming with us?" Bond interrupted, surprised.

"They'll be able to track her. She's been separate from her mainframe for years now. It'll look suspicious if she suddenly decided to go now." Q explained, standing up and stretching. Arms pushed out with the sun on the skin that his baggy shorts and t-shirt showed off, Q didn't look so malnourished anymore; in fact, coupled with the grin he occasionally shot Bond and the awful sense of humour where he tended to laugh at his own jokes, the young man was really rather attractive.

"Are we going by sloop?"

"By what?"

"I have a sloop. It's how I got here."

"There is a yacht. Q will teach you to drive it." Goldeneye divulged, standing as well as she understood what Bond meant. "A sloop will attract too much attention."

"That's fine." Bond didn't mind learning new things and he had to admit, learning a new way to sail would be exciting.

"That'll take up part of the journey. I don't want to go anywhere near the internet until we've left here though. They might wonder why there is odd activity around here."

"And they won't elsewhere?" Bond asked, folding up the blanket they'd been on.

"I doubt it." Q waited so that he could walk beside Bond as they headed inside. "Unless things have drastically changed, there always were issues with connections when out at sea. Odd readings weren't too unexpected. I'll not actually go too deep until we're closer to England."

"As long as you know what you're doing."

"Don't worry. I actually do." Q gave him a smile, it seemed a little thin but Bond linked that to the stress he'd gone through since waking up.


End file.
